The Seed currently playing at the Subiaco Arts Centre is an exploration of generational trauma, familial relations, and the desire to be seen. The trio of characters are holding an impromptu family reunion of sorts and jump between bonding over shared horrors and violently falling apart in a dramatic way.
All taking place in just two hours since landing in Nottingham, father and daughter – Rose and Danny, visit Danny’s father after being globally estranged with rare visits over the course of decades. The first half of the show sees them bicker and reminisce, ebb and flow on hating and loving. Though it sinks into stereotypical family disputes it stays above with strong performances by the actors who land the comedic moments and deliver strong emotions between these periods of standard parental disputes.
The Seed. Photography by Daniel J Grant.
The set and lighting keep the show grounded in some amount of reality whilst maintaining a heightened sense of it. The set abound in increasing sizes of cardboard boxes overbearing on the set which all lead around to some underlying cause of conflict in the family. A couple moments of lighting I found a bit unsettling in perhaps not the intended way, as scene transitions for the first couple there was a bright intense flash from an LED globe facing the audience. Only appearing twice at the beginning of the show I might’ve thought this some interesting use to increase tension but we never see this again, even in the most tense parts of the show, an older lady sitting next to me almost leaped out of her seat the first time it happened.
The acting does stand strong although sometimes seemingly just going with the motions of the prescribed moments of intensity. I felt that the strong emotional states often hit the same note, being at 100%, and then back into standard pedestrian naturalism, with not much in between. But, I really cannot put any blame on the actors as this kind of was how the script was written.
The Seed. Photography by Daniel J Grant.
Onto the script. As mentioned previously the first half is a fairly standard family drama, introductions, some comedy, some jabs and tension. Classic. But, after interval (which is just in the middle of a scene) the story jumps into another category where nuance slips away into an area where characters just list all the trauma they have carried around, not leading into any characterisation, or arcs, or interest. It is almost cartoonish how much these characters go through in their lives to lead them here, with almost every piece of dialogue/monologue just being revelations on these trauma or plot twists which actually creates more trauma. It becomes exhausting and leads to nothing with the characters, ultimately, they are pretty much in the same place at the end as they are in the beginning. I understand the need to explore deep facets of people, that is the essence of dramatic tension, but when this just becomes meaningless due to the volume and severity of it, it just turns into loud angry noise.
Ultimately, I think The Seed is a well put-together show suffering from a script that can’t put pieces of itself together in an organised, meaningful way. I walked away really unsure how this was supposed to all contact together and what I was really supposed to feel about any of these characters.
The Seed presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company is on from Nov 2-17.